from the box

Thanks for all the fish

Sunday, July 31, 2005

Warning! Hoax Osama Photos carry a malicious virus

Malicious hackers are spreading the Hackarmy Trojan through emails pretending to contain news about the death of Osama bin Laden. Seems guaranteed to lure a large number of misguided users into reading it.

Although this particular form of the malicious email started circulating in July 2005, it is a repackaged version of a similar Osama-based lure that hit the Internet in June 2005 and purported to offer news of his capture.

The email reads
Osama Found Hanged
Osama Bin Ladin was found hanged by two CNN journalists early Wedensday evening. As evidence they took several photos, some of which i have included here. As yet, this information has not hit the headlines due to Bush wanting confirmation of his identity but the journalists have released some early photos over the internet..
Followed by a URL.

The URL contains the hackarmy
Me Human, You Alien: How to Talk to an Extraterrestrial

This is your first meeting with an un-Earthly non-human entity: an Extraterrestrial (ET). If you handle it well, you will be the greatest hero alive, and be able to make a fortune selling your story to the media. If you blow it, the repercussions could be unimaginably terrible, perhaps an interstellar war that could annihilate humanity.

Feeling a little stressed out? Rule Number One: DON'T PANIC.{1}

Just follow these simple guidelines, and all will be well. We hope.


Jonathan Vos Post - (c) 1996 by Emerald City Publishing, an excerpt from a book entitled THE HANDBOOK OF UFO CONTACT Me Human, You Alien
John Gardner, Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Oxford and occasional Visiting Professor at Yale Law School, comments on the police shooting of an innocent electrician


Here are some other important things he says to remember in thinking about the police :

(1) There is no general legal duty to assist the police or to obey police instructions. (Rice v Connolly 1966)

(2) There are special police powers to arrest and search. But there is no special police licence to injure or kill. If they injure or kill, the police need to rely on the same law as the rest of us.

(3) The law allows those who use force in prevention of crime to use only necessary and proportionate force. It is said that officers are under great pressure. Being under extra pressure gives us no extra latitude for error in judging how much force is proportionate or necessary. (R v Clegg 1995)

(4) Arguably, the police should be held to higher standards of calm under pressure than the rest of us. Certainly not lower!

(5) The necessity and proportionality of the police use of force is to be judged on the facts as they believed them to be. The police may be prejudiced like the rest of us, and may treat the fact that someone is dark-skinned as one reason to believe that he is a suicide bomber. But in court this reason should not count: (R v Williams 1978)

(6) It is no defence in law that the killing was authorised by a superior officer. A superior officer who authorises an unlawful killing is an accomplice. (R v Clegg 1995)

(7) The fact that those involved were police officers is irrelevant to the question of whether to prosecute them. When suspected of crimes, officials are subject to the same policies and procedures as the rest of us.

(8) Some people say: Blame the terrorists, not the police. But blame is not a zero-sum game. The fact that one is responding to faulty actions doesn't mean one is incapable of being at fault oneself. This is the moral position as well as the position in criminal law.

Saturday, July 30, 2005



Transmiperro

A happy bunch of doggies off to a happie doggie day camp in the doggie day camp bus. The Transmiperro system (Transport my Dog) is a day camp for dogs just outside of Bogotoa (somewhere in South America I believe) where pampered pooches have a little rest from their owners

Friday, July 29, 2005

I found a site (which unfortunately keeps going down) where you change your own image into a Wanted Poster



Wanted Posters
iPods make you hallucinate

According to a Welsh psychiatrist "Using your iPod a lot could make you hallucinate". The basis of Dr Victor Aziz of Whitchurch hospital in Cardiff's claim is that when people listen to music a lot it can cause musical hallucination. This is when a song "plays" constantly in the head.

Aziz claims that these musical hallucinations are causing sleeping problems in some of his patients. "People find they can't sleep and can’t think properly," he told London's Evening Standard newspaper.

Apparently this phenomenon is different to having a song stuck in your head because the sound is continuous and appears real.

Aziz said: "Having a song in your head every now and then is quite normal but musical hallucinations can be quite distressing."

The iPod is taking some of the blame for an increase in people suffering from this phenomenon because of its popularity, and no doubt because it is a headline grabber. Aziz suggests that the condition will become more common as people are inundated with music.

Thursday, July 28, 2005

Virtual Earth :

Microsoft has launched a beta version of Virtual Earth..

The software looks a lot like the Google Earth. You can switch between maps or photos and MSN has an added feature, software which tells you where you are - I don't know about you, but some mornings that would certainly come in handy. Lots of friends of mine would find it pretty useful too.


Press Release
Blogging for Chariry ?

Yes, it can be done and these boys over at killkaraoke.com are about to show you how

The way it works is they blog a new entry to their site every 30 minutes for 24 hours. Visitors can pledge money to donate towards charity. The charity they've chosen is the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention

Have a lookout for some press on the Blogathon - it's been featured in Australia’s The Age, MSNBC, & PC World

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Our delightful planet was revealed in greater glory to me by my friend Karen from Somebody's Daughter

She came around for a cuppa and showed me the fabulous toy available in Google Earth
Since then I've found a couple more people who like to play with it too.

Have a great time travelling virtually with Google Sightseeing
Why bother actually physically travelling ? Sit back at home and relax as you skip around the world

And a blog at Google Maps Mania where you can see the creative work that some clever people can do with Google maps

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

The FBI and Spanish police have arrested 310 people in Malaga, Spain in connection with a €100m bogus (email) lottery scam run by Nigerian gangs. It is the biggest 419 bust in history, and may result in drastic reductions of scam mails.

The operation, codenamed Nile, centered on a mob which operated from Southern Spain. No less than four hundred officers from the Spanish police, the FBI and the US Postal Service were involved with the investigation, which began in 2003. Officers raided 166 homes in places such as Malaga, Benalmádena, Mijas, Torremolinos and Marbella. Police seized € 218,000 in cash, 2,000 mobile telephones, 327 computers and 165 fax machines.

Besides lottery emails, they also sent over 6 million 'classic' 419 scam mails, offering rewards for people who were willing to stash away money that had been taken out of Iraq by the family of the ex-dictator Saddam Hussein or money founds in the remains of the Twin Towers after the 9/11 attacks.

The scam claimed over 20,000 victims in 45 countries including Britain, France, Germany, the US, Canada, Australia, Japan and a number of Arabic countries, officials said.

As police will continue searching for more clues - officials are still trying to determine where the funds have been deposited - the number of scam emails may drop considerably. Similar raids on premises in Amsterdam early 2004 saw a rapid migration of Nigerians to other countries.

Thursday, July 21, 2005

Tom Cruise on "Scientology" :



"I don't care about what other people say.
I don't live my life based on what other people think. I should do okay. I live my life based on what I know is right for myself And I don't care what people say. I know what Scientology is."

"Some people, well, if they don't like Scientology, well, then, fuck you. Really. Fuck you. Period."


Tom Cruise is Nuts
Beam me up, Scotty



James Doohan, chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise in the original "Star Trek" TV series and motion pictures who responded to the command "Beam me up, Scotty," died early Wednesday. He was 85.

News

P.S Three marriages, 8 kids (last child born 5 years ago when Doohan was 80) and took 6 bullets on D-Day. He had a good innings alright

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Police came prepared for gang warfare when they sent three squad cars and a helicopter in response to a 911 call. Instead, they found an 11-year-old girl had thrown a rock to defend herself and her baby brother as neighborhood boys pelted her with water balloons. What a sick society. What gets up my nose is the constant prattle of "Freedom" "Democracy". Do Americans believe their own propaganda ?

San Diego Union Tribune

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Wal-Mart continues to keep Plan B, the "morning-after pill," off its shelves.

The political battle over the "morning after pill" is raging, with proposed legislation in 15 states that would protect a pharmacist's right to refuse to fill prescriptionS on "moral" grounds

Emergency contraception, known as Plan B, is 89 percent effective in preventing pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of intercourse, according to its manufacturer, the Women's Capital Corporation, which last year was acquired by Barr Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Woodcliff Lake, N.J. It is even more effective if taken within 24 hours of unprotected intercourse.

cartoon : womensenews.org

Friday, July 15, 2005

What a fabulous find ! the world's best site for conspiracy theory
Like Dick Easton I'm generally in favor of protecting children from inappropriate material, and like him, I'm concerned that if I keep writing and sending these newsletters in the same manner that I have for the past nine years, I could be sent to jail.

In both, Utah and Michigan, laws went into effect July 1 that aim to protect children from spam and ads. The problem (as Eastman has put it) is that you can be made responsible if you send a newsletter or emailing to another website and that person has ads the fall into their interpretation of inappropriate for children under 18. (This not only includes pornography, but car rental ads, mortage/loan ads, and so forth.) You could also be held responsible for an old link where the webmaster has changed ads sometime after.

I agree with the last comment: "Why do people and legislators expect the government to protect everyone from objectionable material. That is the job of parents, and if they don't or choose not to, let THEM suffer the consequences, not everyone."

I know it's tricky (it's a conversation I've had many times) but the law above will be mostly ineffective, only catching the small time people who are doing the right thing, but not stopping those that really want to get the message ago

Taking it a bit further, is a child going to be harmed by an ad for a mortgage? They should know what a mortgage is, and it's the banks responsibility to filter out the loans. Same for car rentals.

A mortgage - my local newspaper sites are full of adverts for them, and without ads, who is going to pay for these sites?